New Delhi: Village electrification targets under‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna’ (DDUGJY) have been achieved well before time.The Union Government, State agencies and all other stakeholders involved directly or indirectly in this program deserve appreciation and applause for putting in unprecedented efforts to ensure completion of task within the targeted time frame.

It is worthwhile to mention that most of the remaining villages were located in remote and inaccessible areas with difficult hilly terrain, deep forest areas, Left Wing Extremism affected areas and therefore probably remained neglected for electrification.

The progress of village electrification in three years from 2012-13 to 2014-15, prior to commencement of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY), on an average was only 1730 villages per year, including lowest ever figure of 1197 villages in 2013-14.

There are reports in some sections of media that some villages are still un-electrified, contrary to the Governments’ claim of achieving 100 per cent village electrification. In this connection, it may be reiterated that the Government had taken up electrification of remaining un-electrified census villages, duly identifiable as per census code, reported by the States as on 01.04.2015, under ‘Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana’ (DDUGJY). Electrification of all these villages has been reported complete by all the concerned States. Some of the households in sub-village units viz. habitations/hamlets/Dhanis/Majras/Tolasmay not be having electricity as of now, and it is felt that certain news agencies are reporting about such habitations.

The Government has already launched ‘Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana’- ‘Saubgaya’ to provide last mile connectivity and service connections to all remaining households in both rural and urban areas to achieve universal household electrification.All the remaining households including located in the habitations/hamlets/Dhanis/Majras/Tolas associated with the Census villages and households attached to urban settlements would be covered under ‘Saubhagya’.

Most of the villages reported in the news reports are in fact habitations / hamlets / Dhanis / Majras / Tolasand not the Census village, as described below-

(i) Madhya Pradesh

The 3 villages in Alirajpur District namely Jhandana, Amba and Chameli are situated in submerged areas of SardarSarovar. The villagers have been shifted to Kakrana village which is electrified but some villagers have shifted to another nearby locality which is a habitation not yet electrified.

In Raisen District, Khananpura village is already electrified and intensive electrification in associated Tola is under progress. The other 5 villages of Raisen district namely Jaitgarh, Bili, Pond, Ramgarha and Gopalpur are forest villages wherein households have been electrified with solar power.

(ii) Rajasthan

All inhabited revenue / census villages in Dholpur district are reported to be electrified. The names of villages reported in the news articles are in fact Dhanis and not the revenue / census village. Intensive electrification works of GolekaPura and Shankar PuraDhanis have been completed and in remaining Dhanis, namely Ghuraiya Hera, Hathiyakhar, KehrikaNagla, Haripura, and Thakur Pura, the intensive electrification works are in progress.

The Rajghat village is presently covered under municipal area of Dholpur and as such the households in urban areas are having access to electricity unless disconnected.

(iii) Jharkhand

The Saprumvillage reported in the news reports is an electrified village but power is disrupted since long.